5 Signs and 5 Remedies to Deal with a Toxic Boss

A toxic boss can be a nightmare. Sometimes they can be like a rotten apple: nice on the outside but, well… rotten on the inside. Often toxic bosses are hard to spot at first and only reveal their true self later.

Most of us deal with someone toxic during our professional careers. If you are dealing with someone toxic in your work environment right now, this article is for you.

Sarah*, a recent client of mine, faced precisely this situation: in the interview with her new boss everything seemed perfect, and only after the first months, the blaming and shaming game began. Soon, he regularly verbally abused, threatened, and blamed her in front of the crowd. Of course, this gnawed away her self-esteem and affected her ability to perform excellent work. Below, you will learn what methods she employed and what her final decision was. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Often, toxic bosses are quite effective and successful at work, or at least it looks like it from the outside. This is because they often portray themselves as a pillar of success and shine upwards, while you reporting to them have to suffer. Because of their success and their upward appearance, their leadership skills, and empathy are often not developed by the company and they are also not removed from their position.

For you this means: the problem persists. You have to deal with it.

For companies this means: lower employee morale, lower wellbeing, lower performance, and brain drain: toxic bosses are 10 times more likely to be the cause of departures than pay levels, according to?MIT Sloan Management Review .

Complaining does not help. Here are 5 signs and 5 remedies to deal with a toxic boss that will make your life easier.

5 Signs of a Toxic Boss

Only 4% of all employees are diagnosed psychopaths. Much more common are narcissists who are easier to spot and handle. Narcissistic behavior is more common in men than in women.

Simon Dolan clustered five main factors in his book?De-Stress at Work :

1. Jealous of their team’s success: while a servant leader is proud of the success of their team and lets them shine, a toxic leader does the exact opposite. They criticize, belittle, and question the success of their team. Often they will even…
2. Take credit for other people’s work: if you have created excellent work, were criticized for it and then your boss takes it to the leadership team to present it as their own, you know what's happening.
3. Constantly concerned about competition or workplace “enemies”: I have experienced this myself: someone I was working for was constantly concerned about other leaders undermining him and his project and even about members of the project team doing everything to discredit him personally. His behavior was bordering paranoia, obvious to all of us but not himself.
4. Consider their self-worth to be solely driven by their latest results: based on a deeply rooted insecurity about themselves, toxic bosses assess their self-worth by their results. Please know this: you are 100% worthy no matter what your results may be at this moment and the critique that you may be going through. Just because your boss anchors their self-worth to the latest and often fluctuating work results that are influenced by external factors does not mean you have to.
5. Constantly compare themselves to others: driven by the same insecurity about themselves mentioned in the last point, toxic bosses often try to feel better by comparing themselves to the insufficiencies of others. You will rarely ever hear them say: "I respect Sophie for her decisiveness, the clarity with which she handled the situation, and the strength she displayed."

5 Remedies To Deal with a Toxic Boss

Now that you know how to spot a toxic boss, let's talk about solutions. What I am presenting here are methods and ideas that have worked for me and others. Please take them with a grain of salt and find out for yourself whatever works best for you. You are the expert in your situation.

1. Limiting contact: one intuitive option is to simply limit the time you spend together. You may try to get information from different sources, work directly with interfaces, or even report certain tasks to someone else. This may alleviate the situation but also cause new problems if the boss feels like you are circumnavigating them and counts you as one of the workplace enemies.
2. Changing your mindset: what helped me tremendously when dealing with the toxic leader was understanding his condition. Suddenly, I realized: not I am the problem, he is. I didn't feel sorry for him but instead tried to have empathy. I tried to understand him and then have straightforward but tough conversations with him. I tried to step up my leadership game to guide him in his struggles. One trick that worked really well for me: in a difficult situation, I tried to visualize it from the outside, like a third-party viewer. This allowed me to react more calmly because I did not feel I was affected. I was just watching the spectacle. It also allowed me to question myself: did I communicate effectively? What were his needs and did I meet them? What triggered him and how could I avoid it? Did it work? Not always. Did it make the situation more bearable? Definitely!
3. Standing up for yourself: Some toxic people thrive when others duck. Standing up for yourself, in a strong pose, and saying how you see the situation will not only make yourself feel better. It will also shift the power imbalance in your favor. Some bosses may even need the pushback so that they can respect you! In our coaching, Sara called this "richtig herstehen" (here is her quote) – standing up for herself, her beliefs, and her self-worth. I could feel, how the hopelessness of the situation drained away and she found new power to deal with the situation.
4. Mediation and power in numbers: if you are dealing with a toxic boss, chances are you are not alone in who is suffering. Get the opinions of other people to get the complete picture. However, just talking about it is not enough. Take action and confront the situation in a professional and appropriate way. Maybe a first discussion with the boss himself or the superior or both of them may be the right step for you. Maybe a mediation or team coaching is the right step. In my case, a very tough, clarifying 1:1 call with the leader on a Friday afternoon left me (and him!) sweating. However, it improved the situation for a couple of weeks.
5. Good Bye: if nothing helps, go somewhere else. You are free to do whatever you want. You don't have to be there. The world is full of opportunities and wonderful people. You deserve to work together with others like you.

→ If you are in this situation yourself and consider getting like help with it, I am happy to help.

→ If you are a leader or HR professional and view how a toxic leader is damaging the wellbeing and performance in your company, reach out to discuss solutions.

Climb Your Peaks!

Oliver

*name changed for privacy

Source and further reading:

Robert R. Britt: Signs your boss is toxic and what you can do

Robert R. Britt: Narcissism 101

Cinthia B. Satornino: Here’s what to do when you encounter people with ‘dark personality traits’ at work